Thursday, May 26, 2016

Navojoa, Sonora. -NARCOVIOLENCIA.- A trailer that tried to circumvent a military checkpoint located on the Mexico Federal Highway 15, within the limits of Sonora and Sinaloa, overturned on a dirt road revealing a huge load of 25 tons of marijuana and one kilo 800 grams of methamphetamines.

In a press release, the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) explained that military personnel arrived at the crash site Tuesday afternoon, where they found that a tractor-trailer of the Kenworth brand, blue, was overturned on its right side, the trailer box was opened by its top watering their content and exposing the drug shipment.

Culiacan, Sinaloa. -NARCOVIOLENCIA.- A traffic policeman was killed this morning on the boulevard Pedro Infante, in the city of Culiacan Sinaloa.The Traffic officer was gunned down while he was aboard a patrol car as co-pilot, His partner was driving and he was also injured.The slain officer was Manuel Ramos Hinojeantes, his companion was seriously injured.The killing of a traffic officer was the result of a phone call, which was made by the driver of a truck involved in a crash, his friends showed up and ambushed the officers killing one of them.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The weapons used by members of organized crime in Chihuahua remain to concern local authorities, since in an operation in the northeastern part of the state, state police seized, among others, a guided missile launcher and two caliber 50, used to pierce thick armor or shoot down aircraft.In addition, several members of the criminal group La Linea, the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel Carrillo Fuentes, who had in his possession a dozen stolen vehicles, five hundred tactical munitions and military equipment stopped.

The rifle is a military missile launcher, with serial number 329397, and is a device that launches guided interceptor missiles, AERIAL type: XM-4IE2, apparently American-made.

This criminal group maintains control of the northwestern state of Chihuahua, a region that is located right next to the United States by the states of Texas and New Mexico.

Monday, May 23, 2016

In Acapulco, Guerrero, a 18-year-old named Dilan Sanchez Alvarez, murdered his girlfriend, dismembered and then put her body in a container to leave on Avenida Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, a few meters from his house.

When the alleged murderer was arrested by authorities of the Federal Police (PF), he admitted that tried to pass the incident as a crime carried out by organized crime.

VERACRUZ, Mexico – Five people were killed and seven others wounded in an attack on a gay club and a shootout at a bar in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz early Sunday, police said.

The attack on the gay club in Xalapa, the state capital, left four people dead and seven others wounded.

Gunmen arrived at the Madame club, located on Avenida Lazaro Cardenas, and killed two men inside the nightspot and two others outside.

Paramedics treated seven other people, including a minor who was shot, and then transported them to hospitals around the city.

State police officers and members of the elite Civil Force unit launched a search for the gunmen.

Officials implemented special security protocols for several hours, setting up checkpoints around the city to try to stop the gunmen, but no arrests were made.

In the city of Orizaba, meanwhile, members of rival drug gangs engaged in a shootout at the Bulldog Bar that later involved officers from the Civil Force.

The officers arrived in time to see the gunmen fleeing with wounded comrades in armored SUVs, officials said.

The officers tried to enter the bar, but they were greeted with gunfire, setting off another shootout as terrified residents sought cover.

Initial reports said at least one person, presumed to be a local gang boss, was killed at the bar in the shootout, which lasted about one hour.

The Veracruz state government has been fighting the drug cartels waging a turf war on its territory for five years.

The Los Zetas drug cartel, according to documents from security and military intelligence services, had full control over the seven most important regions in Veracruz at the end of former Gov. Fidel Herrera Beltran’s 2004-2010 term.

The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion moved into the Veracruz-Boca del Rio metro area, Veracruz’s most important tourist zone, in mid-2011, triggering a turf war with Los Zetas.

The balance of power, however, has shifted dramatically since then, officials said.

The Gulf cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion have grabbed two regions in Veracruz from Los Zetas via executions and shootouts, and weakened the cartel in four other areas.

The Federal Police, state police and military have been fighting the cartels under “Operation Safe Veracruz.”

Saturday, May 21, 2016

San Andres Tuxtla, Veracruz..- The murderer of an 8 year old child in the city of Las Choapas,was killed by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.The subject was in a pool of blood, and had a bullet wound in the head and neck.

he Had over a card with a message, but to the surprise of the soldiers, the wounded man was alive, so he was immediately taken to a hospital, where he later died without uttering a word.

Nidia Garcia, the police woman who posed nude inside a patrol car in Nuevo Leon not only brought her "trouble" if not fame and now new job opportunities as a entrepreneur innightclubs and seek to be become a model in calendars and perhaps as a guest in some nightclubs. Nidia's photo's that have circulated on social media have the total satisfaction of men who have tasted her charms as a policewoman.

LIMA – A National Police commander was arrested while traveling to a resort in northern Peru with two suspected drug traffickers and a load of 109 kilos of cocaine, media reports said Sunday.

Freddy Tuesta Chicana, commander of the National Police station in Nuevo Chimbote, was arrested by drug enforcement agents while he drove to the Tortugas resort, located between the cities of Chimbote and Casma in Ancash region, RPP Noticias said.

Tuesta Chicana allegedly hid the cocaine in nine suitcases and was traveling in an SUV with two suspected drug traffickers.

The three suspects apparently planned to hide the drugs in Tortugas and later smuggle the cache out of Peru by sea, Col. Miguel Acuña Gallo, commander of the National Police’s Chimbote Division, told RPP.

“It’s regrettable that an officer would commit such a serious crime, but, at the same time, I salute the firm and decisive action on the part of our institution, which has placed him at the disposition of the authorities,” Ancash regional police chief Gen. Juan Galvez told the Correo newspaper.

SAN JUAN – Ex-President Bill Clinton made a low-key entry into Puerto Rico on Tuesday to campaign for his wife Hillary, though without speaking as strongly on the issues facing the island as the other Democratic hopeful, Bernie Sanders, did the day before.

In fact, this Tuesday Clinton said little that everybody didn’t already know: that the former secretary of state is in favor of Puerto Rico restructuring its debt under the protection of federal laws, that Puerto Ricans should get the same healthcare benefits as other Americans, and they should be able to vote in presidential elections.

The status of an Associated Free State of the United States means that, among other differences, Puerto Ricans living on the island cannot vote in the general elections, though they can in the primaries. The Democratic primaries, in which 67 delegates are at stake, will take place on the island on June 5.

Bill Clinton’s visit to Puerto Rico comes the day after his wife’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, arrived to campaign on the island for the first time, with the proposition that it should be the Federal Reserve that rescues Puerto Rico from its economic crisis.

The big difference was the depth of the senator’s speeches. Sanders proposed new ideas and discussed the thorniest questions, referring to the “colonial” attitude of the United States toward Puerto Rico, and demanding that Obama release the “political prisoner” Oscar Lopez Rivera.

Clinton to the contrary limited himself to brief addresses with references to past work his wife has done on behalf of Puerto Rican interests, and more general statements like “she believes that the United States has failed to provide truly equal and adequate treatment to the people of Puerto Rico.”

On the issue of status, Sanders said he would promote a referendum during his first year in office, while Bill Clinton said of Hillary that “she thinks it’s time to resolve the status question once and for all with no ambiguity.”

MEXICO CITY – One of the survivors of a 2014 massacre carried out by Mexican army troops in the city of Tlatlaya that left 22 civilians dead said she was afraid following the release of three of the soldiers last weekend.

Clara Gomez’s daughter, Erika, was one of the people killed on June 30, 2014, at a warehouse in Tlatlaya, a city in Mexico state, which surrounds the Federal District and forms part of the Mexico City metropolitan area.

Gomez told Radio Formula that the soldiers’ release for lack of evidence made her feel “afraid that they might do something.”

“The government hasn’t done anything in two years” and the case “is going unpunished,” Gomez said.

The Defense Secretariat initially claimed that 22 suspected criminals died in a shootout with army troops.

Gomez, however, told investigators that only one person died in the shootout and the rest had been questioned and killed by soldiers.

Authorities arrested seven soldiers, who faced trial in civilian and military courts.

Prosecutors allege that 14 people died in the shootout and the other eight, some of whom were wounded, were killed by soldiers.

The National Human Rights Commission, or CNDH, concluded that the number of people executed was actually 15.

The Attorney General’s Office said over the weekend that it would provide the court additional evidence showing that the soldiers were responsible for the massacre and opening the way for new arrests.

Four other soldiers linked to the massacre were released from prison last October due to lack of evidence, a ruling that was immediately appealed by the AG’s office.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

The husband of a British-Iranian woman is pleading for her release following her arrest in Iran last month.

The 23-month-old daughter of the couple, who live in London, is also unable to leave Iran after her British passport was confiscated.

Richard Ratcliffe claims his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has been held by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in an unknown location in solitary confinement and without charge since being detained at Tehran’s Iman-Khomeini airport on April 3.

She was transferred from Tehran, where her family lives, to a facility 1,000 kilometers away in Kerman Province. Meanwhile the couple’s toddler daughter Gabriella, is staying with grandparents in Tehran.

When Ratcliffe was on his way to pick up his wife at the airport in London, he received a phone call from Tehran. A phone call which was the first step in Nazanin’s story, which has only been made public after more than a month of delay.

“I was going to the pick her up at the airport and her brother telephoned me to say ‘don’t worry but there is a problem with the flight’ and she should be on a later flight.”

“My first understanding was there was a passport problem and they would catch her a later flight.”

But in fact she had already been arrested a few hours earlier.

“Nazanin’s family had gone to say goodbye at the airport and of course Gabriella, the baby, was given back to the grandmother.”

After 24 hours her family in Tehran hadn’t heard anything, so they went back to the airport to ask what had happened to her but “No-one gave them an answer and no-one knew.”

Ratcliffe has created a petition addressed to UK prime minister David Cameron and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khomenei, calling for his wife’s release. As of May 10, the petition had more than 57,000 signatories.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who moved to the UK in 2007 and got a Masters degree in Communications Management, had taken her daughter to Iran to visit family. Several previous visits to Iran had passed without incident, he says.

“The last trip before that was last year in May for her sister’s wedding. I was in Iran last year and we had a wedding there as well. This time was the fourth time that she has been with the baby and traveled to Iran since the child was born in 2014.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, works as a program coordinator for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charitable organisation with projects around the world but not in Iran.

Her husband says no-one in the family can understand the arrest:

“There is no charge and nothing is formal. All we’ve had was a phone call from the Revolutionary Guard to say this is an investigation related to the national security and that the investigation may last two or three months.”

“I can call Nazanin’s brother and I can talk to Gabriella via Skype which is still important to her. That’s the main contact.”

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Barack Obama has no plans to divulge information about the secret military base known as Area 51, where spy aircraft were tested during the Cold War and where some believe confidential information about extraterrestrials is being kept, the White House said.

However, Democratic presidential favorite Hillary Clinton has said that, if she wins the election in November and takes office the following January, she will declassify the information on the Nevada Air Force base, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

At his daily press conference, White House spokesman Josh Earnest addressed a question on whether Obama would preempt his possible successor and declassify that information before he leaves office in January.

Earnest said that he was not “aware of any plans that the president has to make public any information about this,” adding that “I have to admit that I don’t have a tab on my briefing book for Area 51 today.”

Earnest noted that Obama has joked in the past that one of the advantages of being president is having access to information about Area 51.

The CIA in 2013 declassified certain documents confirming the existence of the Area 51 military base, created as per executive order by President Dwight Eisenhower in the mid-1950s as a zone in which to test the high-flying U-2 spy plane.

The secrecy surrounding the base for decades sparked an endless number of conspiracy theories, including those that claimed extraterrestrial technology gained from UFOs was being studied there.

In an interview on a New York radio program last month, Clinton said that, if it presents no problems for national security, she would like to declassify the Area 51 information, saying “I want to open the files as much as we can.”

That remark and other recent statements by Clinton that ETs “could have visited” Earth have won her the support of certain UFO enthusiasts, according to the NYT article

Sunday, May 8, 2016

KINSHASA – The International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, announced on Saturday that three of its staff members kidnapped last Tuesday in North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, have been freed.

“We are relieved that their ordeal is over and that they are now back, safe and sound, with their families,” said Alessandra Menegon, the head of the ICRC delegation in the DRC.

The humanitarian organization refused to comment on the perpetrators or motives of the kidnapping and simply condemned the incident.

The three ICRC workers were part of an aid convoy heading to the northeastern town of Kyaghala to distribute supplies to some 8,000 people affect by the ongoing conflict in the African country.

The northeastern DRC has been plagued for decades by ongoing violence between numerous rebel groups and the Congolese army and United Nations forces.

VERACRUZ, Mexico – The killer of journalist Anabel Flores Salazar, who was murdered on Feb. 8, has been arrested, the attorney general of the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz, Luis Angel Bravo, said Thursday.

Flores Salazar, a police reporter for the El Sol de Orizaba newspaper, “was deprived of her liberty and life for publishing stories that affected the interests of a criminal organization to which the material author of the crime belonged,” Bravo said.

The journalist was kidnapped from her home in a residential area in Mariano Escobedo, a city located in Veracruz’s mountainous central region.

Officials said several days after the killing that Josele Marquez, the regional Zetas drug cartel boss who ordered the killing, had been arrested.

Flores Salazar’s body was found on Feb. 10 on the Cuacnopalan-Oaxaca highway in Puebla state about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the Veracruz border.

The suspect, identified only by the initials A.G.P.V., was ordered held in preventive detention by a judge, the attorney general said.

The man was driving a stolen vehicle when he was arrested by police.

Sixty-nine attacks on journalists occurred in Mexico in the first quarter of 2016, with three members of the media murdered, the Articulo 19 press rights organization said.

Veracruz is one of the most dangerous states in Mexico for members of the press, with 15 journalists murdered in the Gulf state between January 2005 and July 2015.

MEXICO CITY – Mexico is preparing for the “Trump Emergency,” as the government of Enrique Peña Nieto has called the presumptive Republican presidential nomination of Donald Trump, which is seen as a threat by analysts and the business sector in the country.

“Here there is a Mexican government analysis triangle to know how to confront what we’ve been calling the Trump Emergency,” said the assistant secretary for Population, Migration and Migration Affairs within the Government Secretariat, Humberto Roque.

Roque is the only official so far to speak out about the withdrawal of all other Republican candidates from the GOP race, leaving Trump as the party’s likely White House candidate, a situation that has set off alarm bells in Mexico.

The official expressed concern over the “threat” of a possible Trump victory in the November election after the real estate magnate has called for the deportation from the United States of the more than 11 million undocumented foreigners and the construction of wall along the mutual border to block illegal immigration.

The Mexican government in April named experienced diplomat Carlos Sada as ambassador to Washington, Paulo Carreño as assistant secretary for North America and Carlos Perez Verdia, who had served in that post before Carreño, as coordinator of Peña Nieto’s advisors.

In addition, Mexico is seeking to strengthen its role in the United States, its main trading partner.

Proof of that is the visit made this week by Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu to California, where she mentioned the need to “reposition” Mexico’s image in its northern neighbor and noting the “valuable” contributions of Mexican migrants there.

The Mexican Business Council, or CMA, also expressed concern and claimed that Trump’s remarks harm the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“A candidate like Trump, who has been so virulent toward Mexico, against Mexican migrants and who has discredited NAFTA, remains a concern,” said CMN president Alejandro Ramirez.